Don’t Get Trapped… You still have to build your business.

With the advent of COVID-19, we have many executives getting overwhelmed daily by crisis issues.

For example: Can I charge employees’ leave days against their stay at home orders? Does PPP include commissions? Can I dismiss someone who doesn’t show up to virtual work sessions? And so on.

It’s easy to get paralyzed in considering a variety of moral, ethical and legal issues.

One of the enduring frameworks we use in our Scenario Planning process is the well-known 3-Horizons planning model.

This is useful because it doesn’t diminish the executives’ accountability to resolve the day-to-day dilemmas. But, it helps to realign their focus to include the responsibility to look at longer-term objectives.

Think of 3 Horizons as:

~ Horizon 1 ~

The COVID-19 crisis and daily operational challenges

~ Horizon 2 ~

Simultaneously developing the appropriate strategies and actions for a post COVID-19 world

~ Horizon 3 ~

The initiatives planned for the long-term transformations and pivots required to be successful a decade or more from now

One cannot discount the long-term initiatives for short term gains. As with every short-term gain, without long-term positioning, there is an inevitable payback to come.

Gideon Malherbe

Gideon Malherbe is a partner of VCI Ltd, a global strategy design company. Gideon is well known for his development and implementation of unique methodologies and strategic insights that deliver truly extraordinary results to clients. As a visionary, Gideon has orchestrated some of the largest strategy, innovation, and digitization projects in the Mining & Metals and Oil & Gas industries, the results of which have become enduring models worldwide.